Black Isle Closure: The Inside Track

Share.

A former employee reveals more details on the closure.

By Stephen Butts

"Black Isle Studios is dead." So says a source formerly employed by the developer. We've already brought you the initial details based on a post on the Interplay forum, but we've now confirmed that Black Isle now exists only as a brand under the Interplay umbrella. Digital Mayhem, the other development division within Interplay, has also "been dissolved and combined under Interplay Production," according to our source.

The dissolution was prompted by an apparent political "ass-kissing battle" within the separate divisions of Interplay. Black Isle Studios' director quit in frustration, leaving Black Isle unofficially under the management of Digital Mayhem's director. Citing disharmony with the new management, Black Isle Studios appealed to Interplay to adopt a more hands-off approach.

Interplay agreed and the team continued work on Baldur's Gate 3. The title was cancelled after management failed to retain the license for the D&D system, so Black Isle decided to focus development exclusively on Fallout 3. The design was finished, the engine was written, and the work on the maps had begun when Interplay asked for a playable demo of the game.

By Black Isle's account, the demo as delivered was 95% done, including all game functionality but only one finished demo level. (Work on the rest of the levels was approximately halfway complete; all that remained to be done was to populate and script the maps.) The next day Interplay began laying off people at Digital Mayhem. Since the Fallout demo was so polished, employees at Black Isle felt (relatively) secure.

Two weeks later, all but two members of the Fallout team were laid off and the project was cancelled. Interplay apparently believed the game could not be finished by 2004. Interestingly, the two members of the team not laid off were those who were previously working for the head of Digital Mayhem on a separate console title prior to moving to Black Isle Studios.

The financial outlook for Interplay is still a bit grim. Millions of dollars in debt with less than a million in the bank, Interplay's decision to cancel the nearly complete (by Black Isle's estimation) Fallout 3 was followed by a green light for the console games Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 (a sequel for a game that hasn't even shipped yet) and Exalted (which doesn't yet have an engine).

Interplay still owns the Black Isle Studios brand and employees were told, "Interplay will continue to produce titles. If we feel that a title is worth of the Black Isle Studios' name then it will be released under that brand." Though you may still see new games with Black Isle on the box, given the closing of the studio, no such titles will have actually been developed by Black Isle. Ditto for Digital Mayhem. At this point, Interplay also still owns the Fallout franchise but, given the company's financial outlook, it's doubtful they'll maintain it if prospective buyers start calling.